Tolog Review: The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
reviewed by Melanie Corral

The Lovely Bones, written by Alice Sebold is about a young girl who is raped and murdered at the tender age of 14 years old. The novel goes into much detail as Susie Salmon narrates her thoughts and feelings as she is goes through her journey in heaven. Due to this, we have the opportunity to watch how Susie reacts to her close family and friends grieve her death in many different ways. We also see through Susie how her father tries to catch her murderer and nearly loses his mind in the process. In this bittersweet novel, we watch as Susie’s family and friends experience things she never will because she never got the chance to grow up. We observe Susie suffer silently, not wanting to accept after 5 years that she had died and needed to move on in order to be truly happy in heaven. The struggle she faces of not wanting to let go of her loved ones but at the same time wanting to move on and enjoy heaven is both relatable and has readers questioning what they would do in Susie’s position. 

I loved how in this novel, Alice Sebold not only displayed the different types of grief that occur when a loved one is lost, but also her emphasis on the fact that life is short and is ended sooner than most think. Sebold also had me questioning how I would react if one of my own loved ones died, that’s the impact this book has. This novel represents everyone who has ever lost someone too soon, as it goes through every stage of grief and represents human emotion in a beautifully tragic way. Definitely an exceptional novel that has it’s readers experience a roller coaster of emotions while reading.